When It's Your Day
by KTarra
Summary: Post LD/DD. Just a little one-shot that hit me after FINALLY seeing Dead Doll in rerun!


When it's Your Day…..

A/N: After finally having seen Dead Doll in rerun last Thursday I have been hit with a one shot idea. I don't normally write anything based on LD/DD or season 8 in general. I have mostly decided to collectively ignore season 8 after the marriage proposal. If the rumors are true and Jorja is returning for parts of season 9 then I may go back and write some of the ideas I have thought of from season 8.

But anyway I got this idea from the flashback scene between Sara and Nick.

BTW I don't own em, although I wish I did!!

Special Thanks to my wonderful beta MSCSIFANGSR! She's great!!

* * *

The members of the Graveyard shift of tightly knit CSI's and police detectives were congregated in the waiting room of Desert Palms Hospital's ER, anxiously pacing and attempting not to make a nuisance of themselves. They were awaiting information from the medical staff on the condition of their friend and co-worker, Sara Sidle. Sara had been kidnapped, tazered, thrown from a car, drugged and trapped under a car in a thunderstorm. She survived the flash flood only to wander through 110 degree heat to find help, before passing out from heat exhaustion.

The only member of Graveyard shift who was not in the waiting room was their supervisor Gil Grissom. He was somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, having flown in on the emergency helicopter with Sara.

"Come on. Surely they know something by now!" Greg said anxiously to whoever would listen. "They brought her in over an hour ago."

"Greg, they'll come tell us something when they know more than just 'She's going to be ok'." Catherine said trying to reassure the young CSI.

As if on cue the double doors opened and out stepped Grissom. When Catherine saw him she thought he looked awful; like a man in pain from watching the woman he loved struggle for her life.

The rest of the crew were shocked at his appearance. He looked as though he had aged ten years in the last 24 hours. His eyes were tired, his gait betrayed the aches and pains in his muscles from participating in the on foot search in the desert, and his cheeks showed tracks of tears. He approached his team, all of them standing as he came to a stop in front of them. They were all dying to ask the questions but no one wanted to go first. Thankfully Grissom saved them the hassle.

"Sara is going to be fine, but she's got a lot of recovery time coming. She's severely dehydrated, her left arm is broken in two places, and she needed stitches for the cut on her forehead. She has bruised ribs, various cuts and contusions on the rest of her body. She is suffering from slight neuromuscular shock from the taser. She's been through an ordeal, but true to form, she's more concerned about you guys than her own condition." Grissom stated running down the list of Sara's injuries.

"That's just so Sara." Greg said after a moment.

"It is," agreed Nick.

"So when can we see her?" Catherine asked.

"Well, that's the deal." Grissom began, "The medical staff is trying to get her to take something for pain and sleep but she's really fighting against them. She says that until she's seen you guys and knows that you all are ok she's not going to take the meds and sleep. So I talked the doctor into letting you all go in for a few minutes at a time. That way she sees you and she'll quit fighting the doctors."

"Ok, who's first?" Jim asked, stepping forward.

"Actually, she asked to see Nick." Grissom replied.

Nick kind of looked shocked. He had expected for Greg or Jim to go first.

"Come on, Nick, I'll take you back." Grissom continued turning and heading back the way he came.

Nick followed Grissom but stopped as soon as they were behind the door as Grissom placed his hand on Nick's arm.

"Nick, she's really not doing well right now."

If Nick was unsure of Grissom's feelings toward Sara before this moment, the look Grissom gave Nick belayed his true feelings and concerns for the woman in question.

"I thought you said…" Nick began.

"She is going to be fine, but they almost lost her on the way here. Her heart stopped beating but thankfully they were able to revive her. She was seriously dehydrated. They said another hour and it would have been too late. I don't know how to thank you for finding her, if you hadn't….I…." Grissom was at a loss for words. He couldn't put voice to the fears that had 

gripped his heart.

"You don't have to thank me, Griss. She did the same for me. You all did. Didn't matter whether it was me or someone else. The point was we found her."

Grissom just nodded still unable to put two words together.

Grissom started towards Sara's room motioning for Nick to follow him. When they reached Sara's door, Grissom was finally able to speak, "I'll wait here. You go on in."

Nick carefully pushed the door to Sara's room open, and crept in. The room was dark, and lit only by the LED lights of the equipment Sara was hooked up to. For a moment he was afraid she had already gone to sleep, and started to turn back to the door.

"Not another step." A voice said dryly from the bed. He hardly recognized Sara's voice but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt Sara had spoken to him. Nick turned and started toward the bed.

"I thought you were asleep."

"Not hardly. Gonna need pain meds for that. Lots of them." She said tiredly.

Nick pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat down on her right side, gently taking her hand. She watched him through half-lidded eyes. "I hear you're the one who rescued me."

"Sofia helped," He said humbly, knowing that if he had merely blinked, he would have missed her.

"I'll thank her later."

"You don't owe us any thanks. We just did our jobs. I was just returning the favor. It wasn't your day to die, thank God." He replied.

Her eyes opened wide. She remembered making that comment to him last year after his abduction, while they were investigating the probable murder of an entire family up in Pioche.

_"...But everything in our experience tells us they're dead, all four of them." Sara explained to Nick._

_"Doesn't mean we just give up." Nick was being really stubborn._

_"No one's giving up. It's just that ... you're acting like you're going to rescue a person, not recover a body. And on this job ... that's just not usually the case." Sara said sadly._

_Nick shrugged, "I was rescued."_

_"It was not your day to die. When it's your day, it's your day, you know?"_

"I guess not." She replied softly, not entirely sure of that.

"Sara, you said it yourself. When it's your day, it's your day. Nothing is going to change that. We found you. It wasn't your day. I'm sure you don't want to hear this right now, but you're going to have a whole new set of nightmares…" Her shocked look interrupted him for a moment. "What you don't think we don't know about your nightmares?"

Sara simply shook her head no.

"We've spent enough nights in motels across this state, usually with rooms close enough to know you have nightmares, Sara. This past year I also know that Griss has been the one to comfort you when you wake up screaming. Granted we didn't realize that the reason he was there was because you two were involved. Before that none of us said anything when you would decide you needed to go run or whatever to deal with it, but this isn't going to work like that. I know. I know. I didn't make a big deal or tell a lot of people but Griss knows that I'm still in counseling dealing with my abduction." Nick choked up and had to stop for a moment.

"I'm not sure it wasn't my day. I somehow feel like I cheated death. Like it's still out there just waiting for me to make a mistake and then that's it." Sara said leaning her head back and to the side to face Nick, the tears starting to well in her eyes.

"Sara, that's the first thing you have to let go. The feeling that you shouldn't have survived, yea in a way you're right, because of the circumstances. It's the same with me. By rights neither of us should have been found, but we were. We both feel guilty because we were found and so many others weren't. We've both worked cases like that."

"Yea," she agreed, she just didn't want to because it was her they were talking about, not some victim of a crime.

"I didn't come in here to give you a lecture about survivor's guilt. Although we will be talking about this in the very near future, among other things."

"What other things?" Sara looked at him suspiciously.

"Like, why, the woman I think of as my baby sister, has been messin' around with her boss?" He said smiling, the skin crinkling around his eyes as he watched her blush profusely.

"Yea, how come you missed that?" Sara grinned, despite herself at Nick's ability to make her smile.

"Mostly likely because Grissom trained all of us including you, he knew how to hide it better than most, but that doesn't get you off the hook." Nick shook his finger at her.

"I know. Topic for another day?" She asked yawning.

"Yea." He whispered as she started to drift off. "Get some sleep, Sara." He stood quietly, bending over he gently placed a kiss on her forehead. He headed to the door as Grissom stepped back into the room.

Grissom looked at Sara, noticing she was asleep, turning he looked questioningly to Nick.

"She just drifted off." Nick shrugged.

"Thank you." Grissom replied. Gil went to the edge of the bed, sat on the chair that had been pulled close to the recumbent Sara and placed her hand in his as she signed in her sleep.

"You don't owe me anything, Griss, but if you want to do something, make sure she gets counseling. You and I both know she's going to need it."

"She's not going to like it." He looked down at her peaceful face, the only outward sign was the bandaged gash across her right cheek.

"That's not the point. She will need it. If she fights you, call me. I'll talk to her. I know what's she's going through. She's going to be ok. It wasn't her day."

"Huh?" Grissom looked up at the Texan.

"She told me once, that when it's your day, it's your day. It wasn't her day. Don't let her forget that."

"I won't."

"Good. I'm gonna get out of here. I'll let the others know that she went to sleep, and that they should come back tomorrow."

Nick could see the love in Grissom's body language. He absolutely adored Sara. Nick had always been afraid that if Sara and Grissom ever got involved that Grissom would treat it like an affair, and that would hurt Sara immensely. It was obvious that Nick's fears were unfounded. The man was in love, completely and utterly.

He smiled and left the room, content in the fact that the road to Sara's recovery while long would be completed.

The End.


End file.
